postcards.

One of the best things about being involved with Pocket Cultures is that I work with a wonderful team of people who span the globe. We’ve recently done a postcard exchange amongst some of the contributors and, so far, I’ve had postcards land on my doorstep from North America, Europe and South America.

What is I Love Mondays?

It’s an ongoing, if sporadically kept up, group of posts that help me keep the positivity going at the beginning of the work week. You can see them all here. What keeps you positive at the beginning of the week?

I’ve been thinking about Asia and all she’s given me.

Yes, she. I’ve read plenty about how personification of place is a bit of a no-no in travel writing, but do you know what? I don’t necessarily agree. I think it depends on what kind of writing you are talking about, your relationship to the place and also the window you use to view the world. My window teaches me that all people and things are related and and have effect on each other, relationship. To think that we can be a traveller, and therefore exist on the outside of the things, people and places we experience seems a bit, well, absurd. Everything you do changes you. Are you the same person who graduated from secondary school? Or left your parent’s house to live on your own? Very likely not, but that is not just because of the passage of time. It is because of the things, people and places, ie. the actors, that you have come into contact with. Things, people and places all push change and growth, even the bad interactions.

My parents raised me from a baby to young adulthood. I went to university to begin my transition to adulthood, and that’s when Asia really became a big player in my life. Actually, it didn’t even start that late. When I was quite young, my parents went on a trip to Hong Kong and Bangkok. When they came back they brought me Chinese preserved plums in little papers that I knew I would taste again at their origin. When my Mother said, “You’d really like Thailand“, I knew she was right. How, I’m not sure, but between that experience and my childhood obsession with all things Japanese, I knew Asia was calling me.

I enjoyed my time as an undergraduate and even though I was living in the moment and had no idea who I was yet or even much about what was happening in the world, I always had an eye on Asia. I knew she played a role in my future. That knowledge gave me confidence in some respects. When I saw other early 20 somethings obsessing over boyfriends, I never wanted to get deeply involved in case I got pulled in to a relationship which would lead me to question my call to Asia. I did have boyfriends, but never serious until I met one particular person who insisted that he also wanted to travel. I thought, well…OK, we’ll see how it goes. At the same time I was thinking:

{but I have this Asia thing I have to do so, I’m not expecting this to last}

We are still travelling together and now dragging our son along for the ride.

When I first got to Asia I felt like I’d come home. For someone who doesn’t have a home town, that means a lot. I remember falling asleep in my tiny Hong Kong guesthouse with the TV on. I couldn’t turn it off because it was the familiarity of the Cantonese speaking that was lulling me to sleep. Asia was letting me know that I’d arrived where I was meant to. That I had some connection or reason for landing on this continent. Had I been here in another life? Why was it so familiar?

Over the years I have travelled in many parts of Asia. She constantly calls me back to the point that I feel homesick for her rather than the way in which homesickness usually works. She has taught me tolerance and and how to save face, not only for myself but for others (which also comes back to you, by the way). She’s given me experience with building houses and other people’s immense acts of kindness, like when I got on a bus to the wrong airport when I was headed to a job interview. I missed both the flight and the interview time, but one person phoned both the airline and the interviewer for me, changing my flight and explaining my mistake. The bus driver then let me stay on the bus after we’d arrived and took me to the other airport. I wish we could remember to treat our foreign visitors as well as I was treated by strangers.

Asia has also shown me how very easy life is for some and not for others, how dysfunctional the relationship between the two is, and how important it is to find a role in this dichotomy. She’s shown me how our material things really are that and not “essentials”.

On buses in her highest mountains, she has taught me the value of life and how fear can be confronted either with worry, faith in a higher power or fatalism and that whichever one you subscribe to makes it difficult to understand those who subscribe to the other. Also in those mountains, she’s taught me the importance of water and a hat to keep the sun off when I nearly fainted, young and silly, when tramping without enough preparation.

She’s taught me about personal safety with men hiding in toilets, earthquakes, sticky fingered backpackers, centipedes and snakes. So many snakes!

And she’s fed me. Oh how she’s fed me! She’s shown me how to fill my belly with simple bread and cheese, not to mention how good that cheese tastes when it is so difficult to find. She’s taught me to associate the scent of durian with happiness. She’s gently built up my chilli tolerance so that I could experience all the other wonderful flavours involved in local dishes. In Japan, she showed me how to also enjoy the opposite, no chilli, subtle flavours. And she was with me when after a couple of decades of vegetarianism I began to eat seafood. Thanks goodness, because if there is one thing that is done well in much of Asia, it is seafood.

Perhaps most of all, she has taught me to be a mother. I had no experience with teaching people under the age of 16 until, somehow, I ended up working in a bilingual kindergarten. My students, usually adults, were now all under the age of two. As it turns out, my son came home from Thailand at that very age. How many mothers are lucky enough to get a little hands on experience before their children arrive? It was a gift. It was a gift that helped me with the best thing that Asia has given me, my son.

So, for me, Asia is the being who has opened her arms to me, wrapped them round tightly but let me know when I needed to learn something until finally helping me to wrap my own arms around another little being. I came of age in Asia.

Could I have learnt these things elsewhere? Of course. But in my case, Asia was my teacher, my mentor, my Shantiwallah.

Having a special breakfast in the lounge in our jim jams

Going for coffee and scootering on the waterfront

Breezing through the “Best of Britain” show in The Cloud (Neither my son or my British husband were the slightest bit interested)

Taking our son to see a few semi-famous mice on ice

And generally running amok downtown and in Britomart Station

What did you do this weekend?

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I am a sucker for little notebooks and use them regularly either to jot down blogpost ideas, stick in the odd memento, collate my shopping receipts to see if I can afford another latte, set out my ‘To do’ list, or use as journals-travel or otherwise. When I lived in Japan I discovered the Traveler’s Notebook by Midori. Interestingly it has a wee cult following as they have been, until recently, very difficult to get outside of Japan. The reason they are so great is that they have lovely sturdy leather covers (made in Thailand) and there are mutiple inserts you can buy which are easily interchangable so you can basically design your own book for your own purposes. I believe you can now buy components in Hong kong, the US, the UK and probably a few other countries. Unsurprisingly, you can not buy them in New Zealand. We’re the small guys down in the Pacific in case you hadn’t heard of us. Anyway, the thing about being the small guys down in the Pacific is that we have quite a DIY culture. If you want something, just do it…er, maybe that phrase belongs to someone else. What I’m trying to say is that we can be resourceful when we need to be. So, here is how I made a utilitarian* blank insert to go inside my Traveler’s Notebook from a cheap sized 1A8 student exercise book.

1) I bought the 1A8 from my local shop for not-very-much-money and used my existing insert as a template for sizing.

2) I slowly and methodically sliced my way through the 1A8 a few pages at a time to get the notebook down to the correct size whilst still retaining the existing spine. This would work better with tools. I had no tools.

3) I saved the offcuts to clip into the back of my TN as nice list paper that I can write on and then take out individually to stuff into my pocket when I go to the supermarket. Waste not, want not.

4) Then, because I had hacked through the paper with scisssors, which left me with rough edges, I decided to sandpaper it until smooth. I had no sandpaper and so I used the rough surface of the front step. I’m sure my neighbours were intrigued. The large flat surface turned out to be perfect for the job.

5) I photocopied a photo of a traditional Indian kitchen to cover the notebook with because a) I’m fancy like that and b) Someday I will have an Indian kitchen to surround my spices.

And, ta da, here it is in action.

Have you made anything useful recently?

*Not acid free paper and so not for keepsake journalling

I find that it is when you are the busiest that you forget the things that once made you who you are. I’ve been busy since I came back from Japan in 2008 with finding suitable accommodation, dealing with the ridiculous, outdated and pointless bureaucracy involved in trying to adopt while living in New Zealand (a whole other post), looking for work, reinventing myself, raising a rambunctious toddler, researching new ways to stay afloat in this expensive country we live in, building new blogs, driving my son to and fro and also trying to fit in a bit of Mummy time.

The truth is that in my busyness,  I’ve been pretty down on New Zealand and, well, it’s not really New Zealand’s fault. Partly it’s because I am a nomadic person and people like me will never feel happy simply staying put in any one place. So, it’s easy to think “It’s been 5 long years. I just need to move house”. And moving to a new place would feed my itinerant soul like nothing else can but, only enough to make the difficult bits in life more interesting for a while. Truth be told, this is the best place to raise my son. Although people tend to paint it with an overly rosey brush New Zealand is not without it’s hazards , but I know the schools are decent, there is a relatively low rate of violent crime, many people try to be accepting of others* and things like this can happen:
 

 
The other thing we have here, the thing that drew me and countless others way down here to the middle of the Pacific, to Aotearoa, the thing I’ve been too busy to enjoy is just beyond the suburban borders. When I’ve got my waterproofs and my boots on and I walk around in the New Zealand bush smelling rain, humus and manuka I once again feel calm, reconnected and, most importantly, restored. I wonder, when I get there, why I’m not there more often. “What am I doing that I’ve forgotten to come out here?”, I ask myself.  But then I go home and get  stuck in the eddy of daily life again.

As you may or may not know, three year olds are not known for their long attention spans but I took my son out into the bush as an experiment anyway. If you search tramping, climbing and even mountaineering forums online, you get a bevy of boot people freaking out that their outdoor lives may be over once the wee ones arrive. But the nice thing is there are others who have gone before writing calming words and warning newbies not to go with any expectations or goals (which is a serious issue for some competitive climbers!). I decided that our goal should be to focus on the lookabout rather than the walkabout. Turns out, he surprised me. Not only did he focus for 2 whole hours on walking, walking, walking, he asked questions like, “What’s that smell?”, “Can you hear that bird?”, “Is that water down there?”, and “Mummy, can I have my snack on that fuzzy rock?”.

Wow, I thought, he sees things and he likes to walk. I used to love this. I DO love this and I can do this again!

The next weekend he actually asked, unprompted,  if we were going to go tramping. It took my husband and I a moment to realise what that word was he was saying (new words take a few goes to become clear).  “He’s saying ‘tramping’. Oh my God, he wants to go out again!” We were delighted, of course, but secretly I felt like I’d just been given a gift. He loves that centering thing that we once thrived on and he’s going to bring us back to it.

Now, whenever we have the chance, the three of us get our boots on, pack up our backpacks with provisions and drive until we get to the hills. I haven’t decided who is benefitting more from this but I do know that it is joyful when a three year old can take you back to yourself.

 
*Please don’t take this to mean there is no anti-gay sentiment, or racism, or any of those other nasty things in New Zealand as unfortunately, like everywhere else in the world, there most certainly is.

We’ve had the most beautiful day at our local Songkran celebration. My son, who is three years old and too young to remember last year’s celebration, was so excited but didn’t really know what was happening as we walked from the car towards the noise. He even looked a bit nervous as we entered the crowd and asked to be picked up. So, to give him something to focus on, I asked him if he’d spotted the big Buddha yet.

“There he is! He’s yellow!”, he shouted.

He took the offering very seriously and watched intently as we poured water with flower petals over the Buddha. There is something about a toddler stood in a wai that just chokes me up, but I tried to concentrate on what I was doing. Come back, Monkey Mind.

As we collected some food and chai yen we realised that Poom still hadn’t noticed the water pistols. But when we settled down on to our blankets, his little friends approached, soaked to the bone and donning tubes full of water. I started to regret not bringing one for him when a friend said she had a spare one. Here we go, I thought. But, really, he just wanted to play on the playground so off he went. 10 minutes later he came back saying,

“People spraying water. Not do dat! I told them, not do dat!”.

So we told him it was OK and that it was fun, a blessing. His eyes travelled back to the previously offered weapon and then it clicked.

Super soaker in hand…the rest is dripping, sodden, history.

Creative non-fiction. Is that my genre? Who knows, but I am not talking about the small bits of writing for work I have been doing since I have become a Mum. I am talking about this, this not fiction creativity that I used to like, well, need to indulge in. My mind continues to indulge in it because a brain like mine is doomed to indulge. Any person labelled as ‘creative’ knows this. The thoughts and ideas do not stop coming just because you can’t write them down.

But can the ability to form the lovely sentence disappear from disuse? Because it feels like it. It feels like there is a slow leak somewhere in my brain where the ability juice is sneaking out. I almost don’t even notice because I don’t have time to stop and indulge in thoughts of what I’d also like to be doing these days besides raising my cheeky son. But then I catch a lucky evening when he’s fallen asleep in good time and I have enough energy left to read something. Wow. This is what I miss, I think to myself. I know how the writer felt when they were writing this. Not the feeling in the story, but the feeling of the story whooshing through the body and out the fingers.

Ideas.

Incubation.

Sharp black letters.

I want to get there again. I want to find a way to tap into my adult language use that I’d built up of all those ridiculous academic years. No, not ridiculous. I loved those academic years! But where has that mind gone? How can I get my mind back? More specifically, how can I get my writer’s mind to open up the doors and let everything flow out into the orderly channels that make sense to others?

I thought we had an agreement, you and I. This time of the afternoon was to be reserved so that you could sleep in your lovely bed and recharge and I could sit down to the computer in an attempt to salvage any possible remaining bits of my writing career that have been left out there hanging in the wind. But, I can see it in your eyes that you are not going to play the game today. Sure, I’ll keep up the charade by sitting with you for a few minutes to rub your ears and sing my ridiculous version of Mary Had a Little Lamb (I pity the teacher who discovers that you think these are the real lyrics). Sure, I’ll put your gentle music on and listen for you in the monitor as if all is well. I’ll make my cup of tea and settle down in front of the screen. But I can tell that today, I won’t be settled for long before you call me back with something.

“Music off, please”
“Where’s Daddy?” “At work” “At work?” “Yes, at work.” “At work?” etc.
“Drink, please”
“Music on, please”
“Read Brown Bear, please” “We’ve just read it. You can read it again in your bed if you want.” “Yes, please.” **I walk away to hear the thud of it hitting the floor**
“I’m awake!” “You haven’t been to sleep yet. Back in bed, please.”
“Mummy, mummy!”

*sigh*

Guess what? I’ve got some new sleeping music for you. It’s Christmas music. Do you want to listen to it? “Yes.”

I really don’t know if this is going to work and I’ve learnt that I can’t assume I’ll get any work time in, but I’m crossing my fingers and sipping my now cold tea in hopes. I can do positive thinking. I have faith in you. You can do it!

But when I hear lots of noise in the monitor, I know it’s over. I’m afraid to look because you know how sometimes you settle down if I don’t look. But I’ve waited…in limbo…and it’s gone a bit quiet and I need to know…

There you are, but not in your bed. You’ve pulled down your pillow and the beautiful quilt my friend made you and are holed up in the doorway next to the CD player.

No, this is not the original agreement we had about you sleeping in your lovely bed so I could get some work done and you could recharge. But what can I say because I, too, love sleeping on the floor, and sleeping to music, and enjoying precious things like the quilt my friend made you. And, most of all, I like breaking the rules, just a little bit, just like you.

Be assured that sheep in New Zealand are free ranging.

In our daily activities and rhythms we often forget that where we are is a foreign place to others. It looks and smells different and there are very different things that punctuate our day. After dropping my son off at day care, I wanted to go out for a run before settling down to work for the day and so pointed the car in the direction of a place I knew I could don my headphones and listen to some travel podcasts and forget that my legs were annoyed with me for making them move at this hour.

I’d slowed my car to a halt and was waiting to get through when it suddenly struck me that my windscreen framed what some might call “a  New Zealand scene”. I was in Corwall Park at the base of One Tree Hill, one of Auckland’s 50 odd volcanic cones. It was fully my intention to run around the cone if only I could get to the car park and set off. But I was stuck, waiting for three sheep to decide which way they wanted to go. One was halfway up a hill and already tucking in to a fresh patch of grass doused in morning dew. I’m thinking this is like a power breakfast for sheep, greens and hydration in one.  I had a lot of time to think.  Another of the sheep was just looking at me and chewing , like they do. “What are you doing here?”, he seemed to be thinking. The last one was contemplating the cattle stop but finally decided that what lay beyond the stone gate was not something worth treading over narrow metal strips for, at least not today. When they finally inched over a bit I slowly rolled forward enough that they got the idea a flitted up the hillside.

Much of a travel writer’s job is to take up the challenge of describing a place without the dreaded “commodification”. Like salt has pepper, Japan has geishas, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, England has Beefeaters (I never understood that one), and California has  the flashy cheesiness of Rodeo Drive (never understood that either). Places get stuck with images, often not actually very representative, and then they are copied and pasted ad infinitum. This is how we package things up to sell the story and sell the place. Perhaps some people actually still want this kind of writing. Perhaps they want to have critical mass of a particular image in their mind so they can tick it off on their list when they arrive at the destination, you know, for reassurance that all is as we believe it to be in the world. Indeed, I’ve had clients request this kind of writing. If that’s what they need, who am I to refuse? But I can say that it is difficult to spin that story in a new direction for the ten millionth time and it still be interesting. Very difficult.

As much as I hate reading the same bloody exclamations of  “There are more sheep than people in New Zealand” and “They even have sheep in the middle of the cities” over and over, I have to admit that, in this case, it is absolutely true. There ARE sheep in the middle of Auckland. I’m sitting in my car, the rainy mist is hanging low, the stone walls are grey and the grass is green and covered in sheep. This doesn’t happen in London or Beijing. There may be some people who might want to know.  Sheep in cities is sort of interesting… I guess. I suppose I should write about this. Oh, I just did.